The reason anyone who is a modern Republican is critical towards the Iran Deal is because of one reason: power. Instead of thinking of how to remain the powerhouse hero, the U.S. should decide who the lesser evil is: Assad or ISIS.
Acknowledging that power is limited in politics means prioritizing. This means putting aside ego and greed and making compromises with regimes you may not like, to put more pressure on the ones that cause the most fear. The program is intended to place limits on Iran’s nuclear program and provides oversight on it. Not agreeing with the agreement, hoping to get a tougher restriction on Iran all that is guaranteeing is that there will be barely any restrictions on the program in general. Even if Congress passes new sanctions, it will also be likely that the economic pressure will cease. Not to mention that the European and Asian countries have closer ties to Iran that the U.S. does, which also means more pressure to resume them.
CBS’s John Dickerson asked House Majority Leader John Boehner about what happens if the deal falls apart, and Boehner replied, “And from everything that’s leaked from these negotiations, the administration has backed away from almost all of the guidelines that they set out for themselves.” So, in other words, the only way to determine if the deal is bad or better than no deal at all is to think about what it could do to the future.
What the critics see in the future of the current deal, rather the perfect deal, is the Obama Administration to blame for not prioritizing the U.S. and its interdependent power. The biggest issue with American power and its limits and foreign-policy is that each crisis is isolated, instead of being prioritized. Along with Iran, there is China’s air-defense zone, Russia’s aggression in the Ukraine and ending the Syrian civil war.
Part of the American image is to promote democracy and to defend human rights, therefore any country that ever opposed the expansion of that image was perceived a threat. When it comes to foreign-policy strategy and harmonizing, it seems that since the Cold War era, there has been no real definition the limit to America’s overseas ends. Not to mention since 9/11, America’s defense budget is decreasing and there is less money for foreign aid. When Obama with-drawled U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq and resisted military action in Syria, this tried to better align America’s overseas obligations. Now, he just endures relentless criticism from America to push and be as hard as possible, on every frontier with every crisis. So when it comes to each crisis, and the significance it has towards America’s power, in this day-and-age maybe the American motto should be, “why do we really care?”. If America can’t decide which parts of the world matter less, how are they supposed to be able to influence and save the ones that matter most?
